


(un)fortunate

by Flufferdoodle



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Namelessshipping, originalshipping - Freeform, reguri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25042141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flufferdoodle/pseuds/Flufferdoodle
Summary: Blue attends a conference and everything goes wrong.
Relationships: Ookido Green | Blue Oak/Red
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	(un)fortunate

“You know,” Blue said, leaning in towards the boy sitting next to him. Everyone was talking and packing up their bags as Professor Juniper closed the presentation and shut down the laptop. Students, professors, and scientists filled every seat in the crowded lecture hall, and the sounds of hundreds of small conversations drifted into the space between Blue and this beautiful person.

This was the last seminar of the day, and Blue was ready to go back to the hotel room and crash for a while. Hours upon hours of different talks on Pokémon evolution had left everyone antsy and exhausted, and the thought of attending four more days of nonstop talks drained them further. Blue had attended these conferences before, and he _still_ didn’t understand why they insisted on having so few breaks. Seriously. Coffee and donuts could only keep him alert so long.

In fact, Blue had intended to sit near the back with his friends and take a nap through at least some of this, but he’d arrived a few minutes late and was stuck in the middle. He didn’t mind too much. He’d sort of met someone new, after all. Someone cute. Someone he’d like to meet again.

Except for that someone hadn’t heard him, apparently.

“ _You know,_ ” Blue repeated, louder this time. The boy turned to look at him, eyes a shocking reddish copper. Blue smirked. “I missed your name.”

The boy stood up, slinging his backpack over one shoulder – the shoulder that his nametag was placed on, just so the strap covered it up. He motioned for Blue to repeat what he said again. Blue wasn’t sure if he was just fucking with him or if the room was really so loud he couldn’t hear. The pair started walking out.

“I didn’t catch your name,” Blue said, louder this time.

The boy ripped his nametag off and chucked it at him before cutting across the crowd, leaving Blue alone.

Blue looked at the laminated paper.

_Red._

He couldn’t decide if he was amused or annoyed at his reception.

**-line break-**

“Blue!”

The hotel they stayed in was cheap, courtesy of the travel budget cuts, which normally Blue wouldn’t mind. Weird-smelling curtains were fine, shitty mattresses were tolerable, and a mysterious stain on the carpeted bathroom floor were things he could manage for a short while.

The continental breakfast, though, he could do without. Grimacing at strange, gooey cheese in the fake-egg omelet, he wondered if he had time to run to the nearby Starlybucks.

“What’s up?” Blue asked sadly as Maylene took the chair across from him.

“I forgot my eyeliner at home. I need to borrow a sharpie.”

Blue sighed heavily as he checked his watch. They had to meet outside for Rowan to drive them over to the conference building in ten minutes. No Starlybucks today.

“A sharpie?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“For eyeliner?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Is that… safe?” Blue didn’t know a whole lot about makeup, but that didn’t sound like the brightest idea.

“Yes! It’s important. I saw this girl yesterday and I can’t get her out of my head. She’s from Snowpoint State University and she’s, like, my age but she’s already giving a presentation on how ice-type Pokémon function despite their bodies-”

“Don’t you study psychic- and fighting- type moves and communications?” Blue asked.

“There wasn’t a relevant talk at the time! I saw her walk into SL115 and I wasn’t about to turn away!”

Blue sighed.

“Don’t poke your eye out with it,” he warned, pulling a sharpie from his bag. Maylene smiled at him gratefully and darted off.

**-line break-**

Blue spotted Red in the cafeteria, sitting at a table alone. Half-eaten plates and bags covered the chairs around him, leading Blue to believe Red’s group had left him to watch their stuff for a while.

Now was his chance. Blue quickly whipped his phone out of his pocket and shut it off before walking up to him.

“Hey, uh, Red, right?” Blue asked, feigning uncertainty. Red looked up at him, unamused. “Can I borrow your phone for a second? Mine’s dead,” Blue displayed his turned-off phone, “and I’m trying to find one of my friends.”

Red wordlessly pulled his phone from his bag and passed it to Blue. Blue swiped over to the contacts, starting to enter his own name and number when Maylene ran into him from behind.

“SHE COMPLIMENTED MY MAKEUP!” Maylene all but screamed, throwing her arms around Blue.

Red’s phone dropped out of his hand and onto the tile floor with a loud crash.

Red looked at Blue.

Blue looked at Red.

Maylene let go.

“Oh, shit,” she said.

Blue picked up the phone, stomach plummeting at the sight of the now-cracked screen. He handed it to Red.

Red stared at it.

“You owe me,” he stated, voice dead.

Blue gulped. “Right. Uh, you can enter your contact info and I can get back to you-“

“You said your phone was dead.”

Shit.

**-line break-**

Maylene chucked a paper airplane at Blue as they sat waiting outside the building, waiting for it to open. Rowan had insisted on showing up an hour early so he could ensure everything was perfectly in place for his demonstration.

Blue looked up from his phone, cursing the shitty wi-fi. His wikihow on how to make up to people after breaking their phones would never load at this rate.

“Really?” he asked tiredly. Maylene’s sharpie eyeliner was still on, very visible. Not a look he’d normally recommend for her, but whatever.

Maylene shrugged, and Blue threw the airplane back at her. It was expertly balanced, of course, since Maylene was the one to craft it and Blue the one to throw it, and it poked her directly in the nose.

And then it turned into a game.

Once the buildings unlocked and the daily seminars started once more, they’d take turns tossing the airplane whenever they passed each other. In the hallways, before presentations started, during lunch. The airplane slowly bent out of shape throughout the day, but it still flew fairly true.

At the end of the day, everyone funneled into the main gym for a demonstration by Professor Kukui. Something about mixing different fire attacks to create different colored rainbows and light shows. It sounded interesting enough, and Blue supposed the organizers were trying to throw together something exciting and not too heavy to keep everyone alive halfway through the week. Especially since they hadn’t apparently purchased enough donuts and coffee.

Blue still had the paper airplane, and was on the lookout for Maylene as he tried to find a decent seat. Kukui stood in the center, a Braixen, Rapidash, and Chandelure with him. The Chandelure seemed a bit unruly with all the people around, spinning about while Kukui whispered comforting words.

Blue found a spot near the middle of the risers just as he saw Maylene sit down almost directly opposite him, a girl with thick, braided black hair at her side.

Blue threw the airplane.

It lightly drifted off path, just passing over the Chandelure’s flames and immediately catching flame. Blue felt his chest constrict as it survived _just_ long enough to land in the first row of the risers opposite Blue. On Red’s lap.

A slight scuffle broke out as people worriedly tried to put out the flame, but Red had it taken care of by ripping off his shirt, throwing it onto the floor, and stomping on it repeatedly. He seemed okay, if slightly pissed off. At least from where Blue was sitting.

Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed Blue had thrown it.

Except for now he was staring at Blue.

Shirtless.

Shit, he looked strong.

A confused mix of aroused and terrified, Blue quietly prayed an Excadrill would pull the ground open from beneath him and deliver him to his death.

**-line break-**

Blue threw himself face first onto his bed and screamed into a pillow, wondering why the hell the world hated him so much. The door stayed open behind him since lord knew Flint was too much of an idiot to remember his room key.

He heard footsteps behind him. At least Flint was alone. He did not want to awkwardly third-wheel while he and Volkner did everything short of making out in the bed next to his.

“No Volkner tonight?” Blue asked, voice muffled through the pillow.

“What? I can’t hear you, dude. Get up. And put a fucking shirt on.” Oh. That was Misty.

“What?”

“Maylene insisted I tie her up against the bed because apparently some chick she’s into likes bondage and Maylene wanted to know if it’d freak her out or not before they tried anything, but now I can’t get her undone, and you were a Pokéscout so I need you to come untie her.”

Blue sat up and looked at a very, _very_ tired Misty and took solace in the fact that he was not the only one struggling. “I was a Pokéscout _as a child_. Why can’t you just cut the rope?”

“I let Flint borrow my pocketknife and I wouldn’t want to risk cutting Maylene’s arms. Come on. Quick, I want to get to bed,” Misty ordered. Blue sighed and followed her down the hall to her and Maylene’s room.

And, of course, there laid Maylene, hands looking pale from where they were tied against the bedpoles.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Blue groaned.

“Just do it,” Maylene and Misty snapped in unison.

He walked over and got to work slowly untying the knots while Maylene uncomfortably squirmed. Misty stood back and took pictures.

“Why the fuck are you photographing this?” Blue asked tiredly.

“If I can’t at least get some goddamn blackmail out of the situation then what’s the point?”

“I hate you both,” Maylene muttered.

“Say that again and I’m leaving you here,” Blue threatened as he freed her right hand.

As he walked around to the other side, he saw the door was open.

And Red was standing there, staring.

Blue wasn’t sure what conclusions one would reach about walking in on a woman in taking pictures of a shirtless man standing next to another woman in pajamas who was tied to a bed, but he assumed it would be nothing good.

**-line break-**

“I hate my life,” Blue mumbled, head buried in his arms. “I hate it.”

“Cheer up,” Maylene ordered. “It could be worse.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“Too bad.”

“I hate you.”

“I hate you too. Also, your pants are ripped.”

Blue raised his heavy head to look up at Maylene, unbothered as she ate her shitty continental cheese omelet.

“ _Are you serious_.”

“Yep. Right across the ass. Fifteen minutes ‘til we head to the conference.”

Blue groaned and rose to his feet. Probably better to take the elevator so he could stand next to the wall, he figured, and walked over to the elevator waiting area, butt to the wall.

Of course, Red showed up too, still dressed in pajamas.

Blue wondered what god he had pissed off as they awkwardly stared at each other. At last, the elevator dinged and opened, and Blue awkwardly maneuvered himself to stay facing Red. Red raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.

And then the elevator doors slid shut, Red hit the button for the fifth floor – wow, they’d been on the same floor this whole time – and they waited.

The elevator lurched.

And then stopped.

Some part of Blue wished it would give up entirely and drop them both to their deaths and spare him this interaction.

“Fuck,” Blue muttered.

Red tried pressing the button to go back to the lobby, but nothing happened.

“Fuck,” Red agreed.

Blue reached for his phone, which he’d put in his back pocket, just to find nothing there. His pants had ripped through the pocket, too.

“ _Fuck,_ ” he said, more passionately.

“My phone’s not working anymore,” Red said.

Blue pushed off the wall to hit the emergency call button, not even caring anymore if Red saw his ripped pants. What the hell did it matter. What the hell did _any_ of it matter?

“Nice pants,” Red commented as the alarm bells went off.

“Thanks. I ripped them myself.”

Red snorted, and Blue’s heart, despite everything, skipped a beat at the sound.

“I’m supposed to give a presentation this morning,” Blue said after a while. “Guess that’s not going to happen.”

Red hummed in agreement.

“Things haven’t been going my way as of late, it seems,” he said, leaning his head against the elevator wall. The nasty, disgusting, elevator wall.

“Seemed like you were in a good situation last night,” Red offered.

Blue sighed.

“That wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Not sure what it looked like, honestly.”

“Misty tied Maylene up and couldn’t get her undone. Then she took pictures for blackmail.”

Blue could feel the weight of Red’s stare.

“How long do you think ‘til help arrives?” Blue asked, turning his head to look at Red.

Red shrugged and sat down. Blue followed his lead a moment later, bells still ringing outside the elevator.

“What do you study?” Blue asked after a minute.

“Pokémon evolution. Mostly evolutions from bonds with trainers.”

“No shit. I do the same thing. Writing my dissertation on Espeon and Sylveon.”

“Well, that makes sense, seeing as we’ve been in a lot of the same seminars.”

They were? Blue had only seen him at the one.

“I suppose so,” Blue said. “You from Sinnoh?”

“No.”

“Neither am I. I grew up with my grandfather in Kanto before coming here.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Blue Oak?”

Oh, right. Right.

“Yeah,” Blue said, shoulders slumping. “The one and only.”

Silence once more, save the _still-ringing_ bells. Blue wished they’d shut up.

“Sorry about the airplane,” Blue said after a moment. “I was trying to hit Maylene.”

“It’s fine.”

“And your phone,” he added miserably.

“It’s fine.”

“Once we’re out of here, I can order you a new one if you tell me the make and model.”

“Doesn’t matter. Already ordered one.”

“Then let me pay you back.”

Red hummed.

“No, seriously, how much was it? I’ll pay you back, I swear. I’m sorry.”

“About five dates, more or less. To decent restaurants,” Red said.

Blue stared.

Red smiled. “I liked the Pikachu underwear,” he shrugged.


End file.
